Brian Phillips from Swanley in Kent was drawn as the winner for the February part of the Technical Merit Award 2003, in association with Tillers Turf. Brian is the Head Groundsman at St. Olaves Grammar School in Orpington, and chose a Champagne Hot Air Balloon Flight.

Brian was the winner because he took time out to enter the February edition of the competition. If you want to be sipping champagne as you lazily drift across the sky, or perhaps racing a rally car is more your style, then you need to enter the March edition of the competition. To do this is very simple: Click here, enter your Pitchcare username, choose your answers to the multiple choice question and optionally enter a response to the topical issue question.

For every multiple choice question that you correctly answer, you will receive one entry into the draw for the monthly prize. If you choose to tax the grey matter and enter the topical issue part of the competition then your answer to this will be passed to our judges and you will be in the running to win the Technical Merit Award 2003 and a £2000 luxury holiday. Why not print off the questions and offer it to your staff during their tea break?

Many good responses have already been left in answer to this months competition, but there are only 13 days until the March closing deadline. We will be publishing some of the best answers to February's topical issue question shortly.

Our panel of judges has now been finalised and includes Simon Barnaby (Scotts Co), Tim Fell (Tillers Turf), John Hacker (PSD), Martyn Jones (NTF), Stella Rixon (STRI), Dave Saltman (Pitchcare) and Alex Vickers (Cranfield University). To view more information about each judge, click here.

We are lucky enough to offer two live chat forums this month. Next Monday (the 24th March) Course Manager David Whitaker MG will be on-line discussing the work he and his staff undertake at Wisley Golf Club in Surrey. David will be answering questions from our Editor and members from 6:30 pm.

On Thursday (27th March) we welcome the return of Jon Buddington, ECB Pitch Advisor at 7pm to discuss the build up to the start of the cricket season.

If you have any questions to ask either David or Jon, then why not join us 'live' on-line. Simply follow the link in the chat room at the appropriate times. Both interview transcripts are saved afterwards and then posted in our consultancy section, so if you miss these interviews or wish to review our other previous interviews click here.

In association with John Kettley and British Weather Services we can give you the best weather service at unbeatable prices, in fact our service is cheaper than the leading supplier of weather in the UK.The Met Office's minimum charge for speaking to a duty forecaster is £17! Find out more.

Live Line: Speak direct to the duty forecaster, live and in person. 09061 992 069. Calls cost £1.50 per minute at all times. Available from 0800 to 2000, seven days a week (except Christmas Day). Average call time under three minutes.

Instant Match Verifications: Faxed and emailed forecasts and nowcasts. £50 per reply.

Weather Insurance Plus: Insurance for Loss of event or Loss of revenue due to reduced attendance. Bespoke quotes, call for details.

Professional Weather Zone: In depth narrative, produced daily by John Kettley. £25 per month. View an example narrative by clicking here.

Weather Call Plus: Instant access to a duty forecaster, 15 calls per month for just £99.

Call the office on +44 (0)1902 824392 or e-mail weatherservice@pitchcare.com for instant sign up or to discuss a bespoke weather package for your club.

The perennial ryegrass AberImp has lived up to its dual-purpose billing by heading the new Turfgrass Seed 2003 cultivar listings for both sports (mown at 30mm) and landscaping uses (mown at 10-15mm).

Published by the British Society of Plant Breeders Limited in conjunction with the STRI, the new buyers guide to quality amenity turfgrasses gives AberImp a sports use mean score of 7.4 for live ground cover and visual merit under wear.

According to British Seed Houses amenity seeds manager, Jon Chippendale, AberImp is currently the perfect low maintenance, dual-purpose ryegrass for sports arenas. “AberImp features excellent wear tolerance under both low and high nitrogen fertiliser regimes,” Jon points out. “But what is really impressive is its unrivalled shoot density – a whole point score ahead of any other ryegrass available.”

For these reasons, AberImp now features in the key Grade A Sportsground mixtures from British Seed Houses.

For more details, click here.

Before any remedial work, renovation or construction is undertaken on a playing surface, there has to be an understanding of what is already there. The brief summary below outlines the importance of soil analysis.

Fertilising: soil types and prevailing weather conditions are two major factors determining nutrient loss. Without a nutrient analysis, one cannot judge the plant and soil requirements.

Renovation: incompatible dressings can prevent air and water penetration by capping the surface and blocking air space in the soil. One should analyse existing particle sizes and dress with a suitably similar dressing. This is as important for Football and Rugby pitches as it is Cricket squares and Golf greens.

Construction: - testing of new (to be imported) bulk materials will help to avoid future problems with the soil medium.

We offer a full soil independent soil analysis, in association with European Turfgrass Laboratories. For more details, please click here

Calendar – Nearly every day there is a major sporting event, a show, conference or workshop. Keep up to speed with Pitchcare's calendar utility. Non commercial members can also add events that you want others to be reminded of, and add private events too. View the calendar here.

News from Holland – Stadia's Sports Turf Summit 2003 was covered by Pitchcare. We examine the event in a two part article. Part one is available now, by clicking here, with part two to follow shortly.

New Articles - Bringing you up to the minute news and stories from Groundsmen and Greenkeepers in the UK and beyond. We also include a monthly working diary for each of the main sports, if you would like to add some experience to a particular diary feel free to e-mail us at diary@pitchcare.com

Something to buy or sell ? Grab a second hand bargain, many items are added to our Barter Room each week. This week's star item is a Toro Workman Utility Vehicle @ £4,500. If you have an item that's rotting in your store, raise some cash by selling it, for free, in the Barter Room.

Who's Who? - Pitchcare launched the Who's Who? section as a way for members to be able to introduce themselves to each other, and provide a point of reference for every one of you. As well as being able to enter the type of surface that you work on, you can upload a photo and contact details. Each part of the Who's Who? is optional so you can choose what others see about you.

Jobs - There are new jobs posted weekly on the site, but we also have a direct link into the national Job Search database that offers hundreds of jobs all over the UK on a daily basis. Click here for the jobs.

• 8ft stainless steel dragmat for the same price as a 6ft! Only £210 +VAT
• BMS Bunker rake with aluminium handle for only £9.49 +VAT
• Custom made, powder coated aluminium plate sign for as little as 15 pence per square inch. Price includes text and holes as required. Example:- 2'x2' yellow sign with black text - £86.40 +VAT and delivery. Contact us on +44 (0)1902 824392 or sales@pitchcare.com about these.

Pitchcare are able to provide on-site accredited courses on a full range of subjects, including basic maintenance, team building, manual handling, pesticide certification, safe and effective machine training, chainsaw use, turf management and development for all members of staff. All courses are certificated. Give us a call on +44 (0)1902 824392 and you can sleep easy at night. Also, don't forget the articles written by our legal experts in the Health & Safety section.

At Pitchcare, we like to know that the data we store about our members is current or up to date. This not only allows us to target our advertising more efficiently, but also means that we comply fully with the Data Protection Act.

To see the data we have stored about you, and update it go here, and if you would like to change the password that you use to access Pitchcare, click here. If you're not yet a member, then we know nothing about you, so get on the site and sign up now.

Membership continues to rise steadily, now standing at 3826. Last month over 36,000 people accessed the site, reading nearly 150,000 pages - another record for us.

The Pitchcare site is designed for you, the member, to interact and meet other like minded Groundsmen and Green keepers. Our Industry can be very isolated, so what better way to keep in touch by meeting others and discussing the day's work, weather, moaning bosses or whatever takes your fancy. If you have a query about a product, machine or method of work, then share it with other members on the message board and get an unbiased second opinion. The message board allows anonimity, so we've taken any light embarrasement away, about asking those little niggly questions that you may have.

As we write this newsletter, our membership sits at 3826 members; not too bad at all in 18 months. However, if we want to drive the industry forward, providing advice, shared knowledge, better conditions, education and pay, then the bigger the membership the more strength we have to achieve this. Our industry deserves to be viewed as professional, so we are asking you to recommend Pitchcare to at least 1 of your colleagues. To send this newsletter to them fill in their email address and name:

Pitchcare was designed and is run by fellow Groundsmen and Greenkeepers for Groundsmen and Greenkeepers. Remember, Pitchcare is your site.

British Seed Houses are the largest privately owned wholesalers in Britain and provide a service to the whole of the UK through two strategically placed units at Bristol and Lincoln. The result is a comprehensive seed service to the amenity market which spans the country. The combination of wide experience and flexibility has earned British Seed Houses an established position in the seed industry.

British Seed Houses are the sponsors of this month's newsletter.

British Seed Houses are on the web at http://www.britishseedhouses.com